Chapter 125 Digital UK

"Thank you very much, Your Highness the Duke. It is possible that we will be transferred to the Middle East soon. Your donation will solve problems for many soldiers."

After the donation ceremony, Graf Eaton, leader of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, thanked Barron.

"This is the only thing I can do, Mr. Commander. Although I don't think it is the right decision to send the soldiers to the battlefield now, and I will try my best to avoid this situation. But if it is really unavoidable, , at least I can do something for them..."

"You are a noble man, Your Highness."

After receiving the gratitude of the leader of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, Barron asked:

"I didn't know much about this before. I would like to ask, Mr. Commander, after the war, can those soldiers return to their homes and return to normal life?"

"You know, Your Highness, war is always cruel, where soldiers need to endure great pressure, so many soldiers often need psychological counseling before they can return to normal life. Of course, some people can't even To return to normal life, after they are discharged from the army, they can only join those mercenary groups and continue their military life."

Graf Eaton sighed and said:

"Just like one of my former comrades, after he was discharged from the army, because he could not integrate into society, he went to Africa to join a mercenary army and became an instructor. The mercenary army called 'Imperial Shield' was created by Mai Founded by Mr. Vin Coy, who fought in the first Gulf War."

"Oh? It turned out to be a mercenary army founded by our soldiers. Mr. Leader, I have read some reports and articles about mercenaries, and I am very interested in these. Can you tell me about it?"

Graf Eaton also had a good impression of the young Duke in front of him. He nodded and said:

"It's an honor, Your Highness the Duke. In fact, in the Middle East and Africa, or in other words, all places facing chaos, there are many mercenaries. Of course, they often have conflicts of interest and competition between them. , also very intense..."

After the introduction of the leader, Barron knew that the "Imperial Shield" mercenary group he was more familiar with was because he had friends there.

Speaking of which, the "Imperial Shield" has been established for more than three years, but due to lack of funds, it has not developed much. It only takes over some security tasks such as mines and construction sites, and provides training for some local armed forces. Mission, but after all, being able to survive tenaciously in such a place is already considered quite powerful.

Most of the main members of the "Imperial Shield" are veterans from Britain. There are many such mercenary corps in Africa, and many countries, including Europe and the United States, have similar mercenary corps in Africa and the Middle East.

After hearing that the "Imperial Shield" had been lacking funds, Barron was moved and said to Graf Eaton:

"Mr. Leader, do you have the contact information of Mr. Coy? Maybe we will send someone to interview him."

"If you want, Mr. Duke, I can get his contact information through my friend."

"Thank you so much."

…

According to the agreement reached between the BBC and SDTV, the two companies jointly funded the establishment of Digital UK, a company specifically responsible for managing the strategy, policy and service development of British terrestrial digital television.

Digital UK's shareholding ratio is that SDTV holds 60% of the shares, while the BBC holds 40% of the shares. The two companies contribute funds according to the shareholding ratio to promote the terrestrial digital TV platform Freeview.

Mainly starting from November 1st, it will provide analog TV users in the UK with free appointment service for installing their set-top boxes. Of course, the prerequisite for free installation of Freeview platform set-top boxes is that they need to sign an agreement with Digital UK and pay a certain deposit. ——When users no longer use the Freeview platform or change their digital TV, they can return the set-top box equipment and return the deposit.

In addition, Digital UK will also cooperate with TV equipment manufacturers to build the Freeview platform into the latest digital TVs, so that users who purchase new digital TVs can directly watch free programs on the Freeview platform without a set-top box.

In the initial stage, the BBC and SDTV have invested 50 million pounds in Digital UK for the manufacturing and promotion of its set-top box equipment and the research and development of related technologies - of which 30 million pounds was paid by SDTV.

According to the agreement between the two parties, a total of 50 million pounds of capital will be injected into Digital UK again before July 1 next year for the next phase of promotion of the Freeview platform.

In fact, the BBC can be the first to use the Freeview platform, because starting from November 1, their channels will be connected to the Freeview platform.

SDTV had to wait until New Year's Day, 2003, to launch its first TV channel.

It is also worth mentioning that in preparation for SDTV, Summit Digital TV Company has obtained loan financing totaling 100 million pounds from Barclays Bank just to purchase related equipment.

Most of Summit Media’s previous profits were invested in it.

It can be said that this time it is really a "last-ditch battle." Even Fergal Hayden, CEO of Summit Media, was extremely hesitant when he first heard about Barron's plan.

You know, just to promote the Freeview platform, Digital UK needs to invest no less than 100 million pounds per year for five consecutive years.

Even the BBC was unable to bear such a large investment, so it voluntarily gave up its controlling stake in Digital UK.

This total promotion investment of up to 300 million pounds is a huge burden for the "young" Peak Entertainment - Fergal Hayden can't guarantee that they will always be able to produce a successful movie like "The Traitors" Phenomenal variety show is coming.

And next year, "The Traitors" will be broadcast on the Freeview platform, and the number of viewers will definitely be greatly reduced.

The most optimistic estimate is that by 2008, after a five-year promotion plan, the number of viewers on the Freeview platform will exceed 10 million. Even now, the most powerful BSkyB has not yet exceeded 1,000 paying users. As for tens of thousands of people, as of now, BSkyB Digital has just over 5 million paid users, which is only half of this number.

Therefore, even though it was originally proposed to reach the goal of reaching 10 million Freeview platform users within 5 years, people within Digital UK believed that this was too optimistic.

As for other media reports, Freeview was ruthlessly evaluated as "the ugly duckling that will never grow into a swan"...

No matter what others say, Barron is still very confident about this, because he knows that in the original time and space, the set-top boxes on the Freeview platform were not even free to install as they are now, but were sold.

Just like that, after three years, they both reached 7 million users!

This situation is beyond everyone's expectations, making the Freeview platform a strong competitor of BSkyB Digital.

But now, they are spending huge sums of money for free installation, and I am afraid it will not be difficult to reach 10 million users within three years.

However, at this time, due to the continuous failures of ON Digital and ITV Digital, BSkyB Digital has become a stumbling block in the development of terrestrial digital TV. Everyone lacks confidence in Digital UK, so he has very conservatively proposed a plan of 10 million users in five years. Already...

Hey, this made everyone make such a fuss, and he really didn't know what to say.